When the government first introduced the Sellers Stamp Duty (SSD) in 2010, to curb short-term housing speculation, it was a clear move by the government to ‘kill’ the act of residential property ‘flipping’. Now, after several revisions to the SSD framework, including the latest revisions rolled out in 2025, I have a more nuanced perspective of the overall influence of this policy towards speculative residential investments in Singapore’s housing market. Today, the SSD has only “sort of” killed house-flipping in the market. While the policy incentivises most sellers to wait out the four-year period before selling their property, I think it still hasn’t killed the idea of the short-term hold. This approach is grounded on the belief that residential prices always increase, developers usually start pricing new projects lower, and buyers can resell the property at a profit (in a sub sale or resale) without too much commitment. In general, I think this approach has its merits,...